Miracles, Magic, and ImMortals
by PurpleMoon3
Summary: A collection of loosely connected shorts in which Loki is adopted by two thieves, becomes the Rail Tracer, and various other happenings.
1. Never Let it Fade Away

**Miracles, Magic, and (Im)Mortals**

**A Baccano!, Thor Crossover Collection**

**Disclaimer: Thor and all related cinematic characters thereof belong to MARVEL and Disney. Baccano! was written by Ryohgo Narita and later turned into an anime.**

* * *

**Catch and Falling Star and Put It in Your Pocket**

**-Never Let it Fade Away-**

Loki hadn't expected to survive falling through the Space-Between, which was impossible to navigate without proper preparation and inhospitable at best. The Space-Between (or Void, or Ginnungagap if you wanted to call it that, but that was a mouthful reserved for the most formal of occasions) was cold enough to kill most mortal creatures and what survived in the abyss tended to take offense to any other creature's presence. As Loki fell, tumbling through time and space, he felt the unimaginable power of Nothing grating at his skin and eating at his energy, winding it's way through his cracked mental defenses and laying siege to his mind. His armor corroded as if touched by a Jotun, his magic ripped away by an intangible gale, and he drifted uncaring of it all.

It hurt too much to think. Too small and useless for the Monsters, the Giants, and now considered too ruthless for even the famed warriors of Asgard. Loki was an aberration: a hiccup in the fabric of the universe, and as oblivion claimed him he decided to lie back and think of Frigga. His only consultation was that she hadn't been present to see his failure; though Loki supposed Odin and Thor would inform her soon enough.

Loki fell, felt the negative energies of the Space-Between scrape at his skin and reach for the bone beneath, a burning sensation of unmaking, and he sighed with relief as consciousness left him and he impacted with the sandy ground.

* * *

"Oh, oh Isaac! Look!" Miria crooned as she climbed down the crater, uncaring of the rips produced in her jeans. "He's gorgeous! Where do you think he came from?"

Gently, the blonde woman picked up the naked and bruised body, cradling the man's head to her bosom and brushing dirt from his face. Her counterpart peered first at the small body and then to the sky, holding his chin in an obvious thinking pose before breaking out into a grin and slapping a fist into his palm. "I've got it! He must be ours!"

"Ours?"

"Why, of course. We've been trying to get a child for years, and now, here he is! The stork must have gotten a bit lost is all, and no wonder, we do have to keep one step ahead, you know."

"One step ahead!" Miria nodded with a wide grin as stood, having wrapped the boy-man in her jacket. Nights in the desert could be freezing. "But... what's his name?"

"I daresay he can tell us himself once he get's his land-legs back under him. Come, Miria, I can already here those SHIELD fellows, and here we are without our costumes."

"It's a shame we weren't able to take that hammer everyone was making such a fuss over."

"Yes, it would have been quite the coup, but what is life but a series of challenges? Hopefully they'll learn to share on their own."

"You're so smart, Mack-Daddy!"

"Go east, young woman, go east! We have to introduce Ennis and Chez to their new baby brother!"


	2. Save It For a Rainy Day

**Miracles, Magic, and (Im)Mortals**

**A Baccano!, Thor Crossover Collection**

* * *

**Catch and Falling Star and Put It in Your Pocket**

**-Save It For a Rainy Day-**

It's easy, too easy, to lean into Miria -mother's- touch and listen to Isaac -father- explain his latest scheme.

_"I'm not a good person, humans. All I do is lie and trick and just the other day I tried to kill an entire people."_

It shouldn't be possible to forget everything, to just let the years of hurt and confusion roll off his shoulders like rain water, but there is a logic to the madness and for once, just once, Loki feels like he fits. Miria's smile is wide and she meets him, when he comes home, with open arms and cries of how amazing he is. How grand each and every day they live and breath is. Gifts.

_"Tried. Which means you didn't. Which mean's it's A-O-K!"_

Isaac's smiles are more sly, and there's a knowing sparkle in his eye that Loki has come to savor. It happens just before the patriarch of their little band hustles them out the door for a new mask. They are reborn everyday, Isaac says, with new chances to make new mistakes or repeat the fun ones. They've stolen everything from time, to a newborn's laughter, and a even a naval submarine that mother insisted on painting yellow.

_"What's the difference? They still died, I bored a hole halfway through their planet, and fa- _Odin_ told me..."_

It's too easy, and maybe Loki is still in the void, and this is just a way of his mind trying to protect itself. But what started out as a way to buy time to heal -oh, how he ever thought he could _use_ these not mortals- has turned into something more. It's a wicked, seductive alchemy, this thing that wraps around the heart and knits them together.

_"No, Loki. No. You _are _a good person, and we are so proud of you. And even if you have done all that, you aren't lying now, and we believe in you! We think you're great!"_

He fits, somehow, on this dirtball of a planet. He fits a way that he never did before, with people who live without the intangible dream of Valhalla, and so after his introduction and probationary period he walks past his smiling, encouraging parents, and nods solemnly to the man at the head of the table. There's a dark green fedora on his head that feels more right than his helm ever did, and a tray of knives gleaming on the table.

"Loki Dian-Harvent," The gray haired Martillo intones. "Do you swear to answer the questions that I am about to ask you honestly and truthfully?"

"Yes."

"Do you freely admit you wish to become a _camorrista_?"

"Yes."

"The _Camorra_ is an organization born in the cell-blocks of our mother country Italy. You're right foot will be in a prison cell while your left foot will be in the grave. You may be asked to give up your liberty, your freedom, for the good of the organization. Can you do this? Think carefully, you can still turn around..."

_"You've got to live in the moment!"_

"Yes."

Loki's heart thuds in chest as he produces his own favored make of dagger for inspection, and the mustached man hands it back with a satisfied grunt. Mother and father are holding each other, breathless but supportive, as Firo steps into the dimly lit ring and the two immortals -though one more so than the other, and it isn't the one that once called himself a god- begin a dance, the tempo kept by the sound of ringing metal.

If it is a fever-dream, Loki doesn't want to wake up.


	3. And Tap You On The Shoulder

**Miracles, Magic, and (Im)Mortals**

**A Baccano!, Thor Crossover Collection**

* * *

**Catch and Falling Star and Put It in Your Pocket**

**-And Tap You On the Shoulder-**

Steve stared at the projector screen, his super-soldier brain screeching to a halt. There was a new member, the duo had become a trio, but it was still _them_. The woman was wearing a magician's assistant's outfit, all sequins and sparkles with a domino mask, and the man was dressed sharply in a tuxedo, top hat, and a Guy Fawkes mask. Both had struck poses for the camera, sides pressed together, showing off the bag full of stolen loot.

It was like looking into a window to the past, gray tones of shadow brought forth into the vibrant present, and Steve couldn't really care that the third member in the still frame was attracting more of his team's attention than the other two thieves.

_He was sketching when the two people dressed like mimes walked up to the pond, sketching as they opened empty potato sacks and proceeded to chase the park's ducks around. He laughed and made quick caricatures to capture the man's expression when he finally caught one and stuffed it in his bag. There were laws against this sort of thing, there had to be, but for the life of him he couldn't care. He laughed with the others that walked the trails as man and woman snatched up the fat, waddling creatures and made off with their quaking prizes. _

_He found out later that the soup kitchen was serving duck soup._

Fury didn't care why anyone would want to steal a collection of hundred-year-old hairbrushes. He didn't particularly care. What he did want to know was how they managed to get past the security -the hairbrushes were being stored near several more high-profile and, supposedly, dangerous artifacts- and who they were. Thor was going on about magic and the misguided deeds of his brother, how it was only luck that prevented Loki and his accomplices from taking the box of brushes instead of the box containing a rune-carved rock.

Steve shook his head and laughed, a few tears escaping to track down the sides of his face.

"Captain Rogers?" Fury questioned, expression hard and focused. Usually Steve was one of the few Avengers he could count on to be professional. "Something to share with the class?"

"I, uh-" Steve took a moment to catch his breath. "-I gotta get something, be right back."

The two thieves had been like a less aggressive Bonnie and Clyde. Modern day Robin Hoods, of a sort, stealing everything from clocks to candy with no clear purpose except, maybe, to lighten hearts with the sheer ridiculousness of their heists. He had been a bit obsessed with them -fanboy, he thought might be the modern term- combing through back issues of newspapers for signs of their passage, and compiled a scrapbook that he kept current even during the war. It had been a strange sort of stability for him. A remembrance for what he was fighting for.

When he found the scrapbook in storage, pages yellowed with age but whole, he'd smiled the smile of a wistful dream.

Steve had to fight to keep the boyish grin off his face when he returned to the briefing room, book flipped open to the clearest picture he could find: The woman dressed as a 20's flapper and the man in a pinstriped suit. The man was cheerfully waving a cane with one hand, blurred in the photo, with a long box tucked under one arm.

It was nice being the one with all the information for a change.

(He was looking forward to adding entries to his scrapbook.)


	4. Loop and Loop

**Miracles, Magic, and (Im)Mortals**

**A Baccano!, Thor Crossover Collection**

**Disclaimer: _Thor_ and all related cinematic characters thereof belong to MARVEL and Disney. _Baccano!_ was written by Ryohgo Narita and later turned into an anime.**

**And lo, Avengers appear.**

**A/N- This story does not take place in the same continuity as the previous ones. FYI.  
**

* * *

**-Loop and Loop-**

Claire is a girl's name. But is also a boy's. Claire Stanfield. That was his name before, after, before he became someone else-

_Snow. Ice. Golden spires and rich red velvet. Hundreds of eyes stare down but only the One matters._

-Felix Walken is good name. Bought and paid for. His. Also, latin. Felix. Happy and Lucky-

_Lucky, lucky, luck-y, locky, Low-key. Loki._

-and Walken like walkers. Flyers. Someone who isn't bound to the same rules and can run far and wide and the very sky is his highway. He can't ever stand to stay in one place, his feet would like to run away on him, and so he joins a traveling circus and makes the only thing he can be certain of in his world, his body, into a finely tuned instrument-

_Running, jumping, leaping. Fighting hard and stretching for that one last inch, whirling around a pole and kicking. He has done it a thousand, a hundred times, and he has done it not at all. A natural they say_.

-but it gets dull. It gets boring. He gives his goodbyes to the freaks and the beasts and the misfits and throws himself out into a great void waiting to see where he will land. He can't remember how it started, but there is wine staining his coat and blood on his hands and he can't tell where one ended and the other began-

_Red. Red flapping in the wind, covering him protectively, and a warmth on his side calling him-_

-but he goes back to his brothers of blood, and on the way he treads quickly but carefully and spreads his own legend. He meets a girl without a voice-

_Pinpricks is all they are, threading through his lips, leather and lace and the world is his and what does it matter if he speaks because he only needs his eyes to see and his heart to beat and he gives the weapons he is the weapon he is the beginning and end and mother-father-brother-sister-son-daughter-god._

-whom he loves. Wholly and freely and without reserve as soon as he meets her. He could almost believe he did not dream her up, with her milk-pale skin and dark hair and gold eyes-

_Golden eyes. Eagle eyes. Watching all and everything and saying nothing!_

-and he kills and she comes and they fight together joining their families in a world that is Claire's, that is Felix's, that is Chane's, and Firo's and Luck's and Keith's and they never die.

Firo asks him about it, and offers a flask, and smiles sadly when Claire says no. For is he not the god of his world? He cannot die. He tries to explain it, and accepts a glass for Chane, because though she is amazing and beautiful she is not Claire. Claire smiles and drinks red wine. Vino. He drinks it deep, and keeps his world, keeps his friends, keeps everything that matters close because if he forgets-

_Whispers. Wrongs. Wretched traitor._

-Claire doesn't drink of immortality.

Still, though the decades pass he does not age. Not like the younger members of the Family, of the Organization, who are heavily vetted before being given the incomplete formula.

_Apples. Fields of apples with skin the color of eternity grow in ever-abundance. They are bitter on his tongue._

Yet he does not heal as the others do. They close ranks around him, wondering but ever-loyal and accepting, and his beautiful, silent wife strokes his cheek and sharpens her daggers, and all is well.

Until the sky splits open above their home, an army of demons descend, too-familiar lightning fills the sky, and Claire screams for Chane to not let him wake up. He does not want to wake up. He does not want to go back to gleaming cities and missing children and a fake family with false fathers and mothers and brothers and-

"No." Berga bites out from the shadows where he is beating one of many grey-skinned monsters into a fine paste. Monsters that dared step into Gandor territory. "Claire. No one is taking you anywhere, little bro."

And Claire remembers that he is a god, and this is his world, and Claire does what Claire does best. Vino takes the field with the rest of the immortals, drawing their enemy into shadows of Manhattan's underworld and winnowing them down to a manageable size that the heroes and cops can mop up.


	5. To Thy Ownself Be True

**Miracles, Magic, and (Im)Mortals**

**A Baccano!, Thor Crossover Collection**

**A/N- Originally posted to LJ, now added to the collection.**

**Summary: Isaac and Miria are two halves of one whole, spreading much needed mischief throughout the world.**

* * *

**-To Thy Ownself Be True-**

Isaac is he who laughs. Miria is she who rebels. Together, they possess an unbreakable will that bends reality itself to meet their needs. One leads without thought. The other follows without care. Joined, they orbit around some indefinable ideal as agents of a strangely constructive chaos. After Eve met them, her world was written in a darker color but the future became all the more brighter for it.

Isaac's eyes are a steely blue-grey, reflective of his own unwavering determination. Miria's are filled with unfaltering belief; a shade of hazel that shines gold in the sunlight. When the two of them ride the high of elation after a particularly good caper, hands linked and feet dancing, neither notices the way their eyes seem to spark green. The first time Firo saw it happen, he laughed until he was sick but didn't say why.

Miria was born into a wealthy family in the heart of winter. Isaac was born the same night in the parking lot of a hospital on the other side of the country. Miria was so pale she was blue, umbilical cord wrapped around her neck, that the midwife almost declared her still-born. Isaac was shortly abandoned by a mother that didn't have the means to care for him. Neither should have made it through the night.

When they met, they stole each other's names, whispering secrets to the world. Later on, when they drink from righteously purloined bottles they will agree that the wine tastes like apples, and reminds them of gold.

Two halves of a whole, forever intertwined, Immortal, never alone, they are Miria and they are Isaac and they are happy.

Together, they are Loki.

* * *

_The god-that-is-not-a-god fell, and he thought, there is something wrong with me. Tainted blood, and tainted thoughts, he drew out his own soul and held it -a bright, shining thing- in his hands for examination. He is neither Aesir nor Jotunn. A warrior and a weaver. Man and woman. He fits no where and everywhere and he wants to-_

_He does not know what he wants. He thought to end it, end all of it, but that was... wrong?_

_He holds his soul in his hands, body rapidly growing weak, thoughts slowing, and smiles. _

_His soul cracks, splits in twain as his mouth twists into a mad grin, and with a dying laugh he flings the two halves of himself away._

_On Midgard, it is the middle of winter, and two newborns dream of stars and frost and sharp, shattered bridges glinting like beautiful rainbows in the twilight._


	6. Round and Round and Back at the Start

**Miracles, Magic, and (Im)Mortals**

**A Baccano!, Thor Crossover Collection**

**A/N: A wild Amora appears! Also, she's a hell of a lot nicer, relatively, than canon typically has her as. There's still the blue/orange morality that comes with being a god and magic user. I figured since Movie!Verse appears to be a lot less dark -Odin for one isn't a _total_ asshole, even if he does need some parenting classes- Amora can have some feelings for Loki that extend beyond what he can do for her and vice-verse.  
**

**-Round and Round and Back at the Start-**

**(Loop and Loop Part 2)**

Claire remembers green and gold: the colors of magic. He remembers a woman with flowing yellow hair -hair he had stolen for her for some future favor- dressed in rich greens finding him someplace he had been locked far, far away. To think, and repent. But Claire was a god and he acted as he wished. Gods did not ask for forgiveness.

The woman had stepped through the Walls Without Doors, dark fondness in her eyes, and a smoking goblet in hand. There was something comforting about her presence. Like the stagnate air itself freshened with her passage.

_My Prince,_ she had whispered it like a lover though he knew her to have never been his. _My dearest apprentice. Would that I could break thy bonds, but the AllFather's magic is greater than mine own. It does not repay my debt to you, but it is all I have to offer._

And she stroked his cheek, cradling him close as a mother comforted a child, and tipped the goblet so that the strange, bitter liquid ran into his mouth. He swallowed it all, closing his eyes and resting his head against her breast. _Would that you were my mother, Enchantress._

_Hush, my Prince. Hush, and sleep. Sleep, my Loki, Sleep and do not dream. Sleep and do not wake. Sleep, and be reborn. I will find you, dearest apprentice, I will find you again. This, on my magic, I swear._

He sleeps, and does not wake. In another world, in a time since past, a baby boy with brown eyes that shine gold -sometimes red- is born. Gold is one of the colors of magic. Red is the color of blood and the legacy of giants.

* * *

It is Claire's birthday party. He does not often celebrate them, but his Father-in-Law is in town on business so that is a reason to bake cakes. Huey looks him over and gives a tiny, tiny smile when he sees the happiness reflected in his daughters eyes. It is approval of a sort and Claire beams and pops the cork on a bottle of champagne. His Father-in-Law has never been the excitable sort and he and Chane disappear into the kitchen.

His brothers are present of course, and Luck is sprawled out on a couch complaining about police sweeps and procedures. There are even a few Martillos in the back room setting up an obstacle course of jenga blocks around the poker players. Isaac and Miria couldn't come as they are in Norway trying to find and steal some special tree and didn't want to risk the increased airport security from the failed alien invasion, but they called in their well wishes and sent a package of stained stone chips with strangely familiar little squiggles on them. The two thieves seemed to think they were an example of ancient, foreign dominoes.

It is a rather rowdy party, and Claire is clapped on the back and has his hair ruffled more than he likes but he doesn't say anything about it. The invasion ruffled a whole hell of a lot of feathers, including his own, and there's been a crackdown from some new, global organization that is making more than a few immortals nervous. They weren't able to clear out all the bodies -one of which was sent to a taxidermist- and now that the dust has settled it has become obvious to _authorities_ that someone other than the Avengers had been fighting. The borderline legal bullet casings littering the street may also have something to do with it.

But criminal organizations such as themselves make no small amount of business in identification forgery and smuggling, and Keith has been soothing concerns with his usual quiet, ruthless efficiency. If worse comes to worse, they can fake a death and establish their people elsewhere.

So, despite the light, relaxed atmosphere in the house, Claire isn't surprised when more weapons than he cares to count appear in immortal and near-immortal hands all trained on the singular blonde woman that steps out of the air and onto the bar. She raises one immaculately sculpted eyebrow as her gaze travels around the room. She stops on him, icy green eyes widening, and Claire freezes-

_A city in the clouds. Golden towers. Raucous laughter. Lies. Lies. Lies. Lies._

_-_but Chane is there, and Berga, and Luck, and Keith, and even Old Man Martillo is appraising the woman with a gimlet eye. They are a family. But so is she. In a way. He does not remember much, not clearly, but such is the nature of dreams is it not? He remembers her holding him, telling him to sleep.

Her lips are a promise. Sweet. "I said I would find you, dearest prince."

Chane's hand is in his. "I do not want to wake up, mother."

"I would not ask you to." Her expression is inexplicably sad.

Slowly, guns and knives and weapons of all kinds are stowed away and Maiza offers the enchanting woman a hand down from the table. There will be questions, but for now it is Claire's birthday and they will sing and dance and eat cake and drink wine and celebrate living.


End file.
